Jesus Christ

Hurricanes rage and tsunamis flood, killing people and destroying homes. Dictators oppress their people; destitute children beg in the streets of major cities throughout the world. Loved ones die, and family members suffer. If God is loving, we may ask, why is there suffering in the world? God Himself has answered these questions in the scriptures. Every moment of every day, He remembers us: Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? yea, they may forget, yet will I not forget thee. Behold, I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands… (Isaiah49:15-16) But still the question remains: if He remembers us and loves us so completely, why does He allow us to suffer? God loves us, so He sent us to earth to choose between good and evil The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (inadvertently called “The Mormon Church” by the media) teaches that God has a plan for us. In The Pearl of Great Price, which contains... Read the rest of this entry »

The atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ “embraces, sustains, supports, and gives life to all other gospel doctrines.  It is the foundation upon which all truth rests and all things grow out of it and come because of it.”1 “The wondrous and glorious Atonement was the central act in all of human history.”2 Because of these statements, all things also point to Christ and His atonement.  Those who lived before Christ looked forward to Him and His infinite and eternal sacrifice.  Those who live after Christ look back to this greatest of all events and “remember what was done.”3 There were many different ways in which the blood sacrifices before Christ were types and shadows of the great and last sacrifice.  Note a few of the details: First, like Christ, the [sacrificial] animal was chosen and anointed by the laying on of hands. (The Hebrew title Messiah and the Greek title Christ both mean “the Anointed One.”) Second, the animal was to have its life’s blood spilt. Third,... Read the rest of this entry »

The atonement of Jesus Christ is the central doctrine of Christianity, and all other Christian doctrines come out of and are appendages to it.1 Not only can these other doctrines be connected back to the Savior and His Atoning Sacrifice, but if they are not, “there will be no life nor substance nor redemption in them,” to use a phrase by President Boyd K. Packer, an apostle of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.2 It is therefore not only important, but necessary, when studying any doctrine or teaching or appendage of the gospel of Jesus Christ, to connect it back to Jesus Christ and His eternal sacrifice. When Adam and Eve were driven out of the Garden of Eden, they were commanded “that they should worship the Lord their God, and should offer the firstlings of their flocks, for an offering unto the Lord” (Moses 5:5).  Yet M. Russell Ballard, another apostle of the Church, has said that some have wondered, “How could the slaughtering of an animal upon an altar... Read the rest of this entry »

Could Jesus have sinned? If He could not sin, what was the point of the temptation? Every person who was ever created by Heavenly Father was given the gift of moral agency, which is the right to make choices. This includes Jesus Christ. The Savior’s gift to us was one He gave willingly, which was a necessary part of the gift. This means that when Satan tried to tempt Him, Jesus could indeed have given into temptation. God knew, when He sent Jesus, that His Son would not sin, but Jesus had the ability to do so if He chose. Howard W. Hunter, a former prophet of the Mormons, spoke on this subject before he was a prophet. Elder Hunter, as he was then called, said, “It is important to remember that Jesus was capable of sinning, that he could have succumbed, that the plan of life and salvation could have been foiled, but that he remained true. Had there been no possibility of his yielding to the enticement of Satan, there would have been no real test, no genuine victory in the result.... Read the rest of this entry »

Of all the questions we ponder concerning Gethsemane, why the Savior suffered there is perhaps that which has most baffled scholars and saints. The Gospel writers tell us what happened at that crucial site, but they do not clearly address the question of why. In an effort to answer the question, some suggest that Christ suffered because He recognized the ingratitude of men who would not accept the Atonement He would make for them on the cross, or because He loved us and yet knew what we would commit or face in the future, such as sins, betrayals, denials, and persecutions. others offer that perhaps Jesus Christ suffered because He realized He had to yield up His divine nature and become obedient unto death, thereby becoming the “suffering servant” or be required to give up all the good that could fill His life. Some recommend that we understand Christ’s suffering in an eschatological context and view that which Jesus Christ endured and prayed to avert as the suffering... Read the rest of this entry »

The Fall of Adam brought into the world both physical death, which is the separation of the spirit from the body (James 2:26), and spiritual death, separation from God or alienation from the things of God (Alma 12:32). The Atonement of Jesus Christ redeems, or ransoms, us from the effects of the Fall. “Redemption,” Bruce R. McConkie, late Mormon apostle (apostle of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter–day Saints)  taught, is of two kinds: conditional and unconditional” (Mormon Doctrine, 2d ed., Bookcraft, 1966, 623.) Jesus Christ’s unconditional redemption provides two free gifts to mankind. The first unconditional gift is that all who ever have or ever will live in mortality will be redeemed from physical death through the Resurrection, because Jesus “taste[d] death for every man” (Hebrews 2:9). John recorded the Savior’s own testimony that all “shall come forth; they who have done good, in the resurrection of the just; and they... Read the rest of this entry »